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ME - posted on 12/06/2009

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I will get a picture of the cookie tree and post it for you guys...it's darling...my grandma made the cookies for her 3rd grade students as christmas gifts...my mom started making them when I was about 3 years old...I don't remember when we started hanging them on the tree, but it was probably about the same time...It's a TON of work, but it's totally worth it to keep it going...

OH man our Christmas routine is horrendously crazy. LOL! Our lights stay up year around though, mostly that's a safety issue. I don't want my husband falling off the freaking roof trying to put them up with snow and ice up there. =)

Our decorations have been out and up since the beginning of November. Our tree is up, husband went scrooge on me and bought a fake one this year =(. Just not the same. I've been baking for the last couple of weeks. I make up trays for our neighbors, the kids school, and each of their activities. So I need to make a lot and that takes time.

Our Christmas shopping is almost done. I need to pick up a few big things for our extended family but that's usual. We always get our parents a big joint gift from all the kids and collecting the money from the siblings takes time, especially when only two of us live in the same city. LOL!

Christmas eve is always spent with my side of the family. It's been a tradition in my family going back generations. Christmas day is just us. Then Boxing Day is Ryan's family. This year is slightly different though, in that I'm not cooking for my family. We're going to my parents! First time in 7 years. lol. And for Ryan's family his sister and her husband won't be there. They are leaving in a week to go to the Philippines for 5 weeks.

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We took Jeffrey to see Santa and he was great (I was surprised, I expected him to cry). When we got to the front of the line, he stood there pointing and repeating "hoho" over and over again. He even managed to sit still long enough for a photo.

Oh Jeez, the first time I took my daughter to see Santa it was a total disaster. She was around 20 months and she refused to sit on his lap so I held her and stood next to Santa. Mya was very verbal at a young age so she spoke very clearly. Well, the guy dressed as Santa wanted to assure her that she should not be scared so he patted her on her shoulder. Mya lost it and put her hands up in front of her in a stop motion and started yelling, No Santa..Don't touch me. I mean she was screaming very loudly and very clearly don't touch me Santa.

Everyone stopped and looked at us and the poor guy turned red and stepped away...with a look on his face like I didn't touch her inappropriately... Oh gosh please don't let anyone think that I did. I was mortified and I had to carry her out of there fast apologizing the whole way out. To this day she is still weirded out by anyone dressed as Santa. She is 6 and still refuses to take a picture with Santa, but now she says that itis not Santa that it is just some guy paid to dress up like Santa.

My son on the other hand who is 2 won't sit still long enough to sit on Santa's lap. He runs off giggling while we try to chase him and gather him up to sit on Santa's lap and once we get him on Santa's lap her squirms and yells..I stuck, get me down. So needless to say we don't do pictures with Santa.

Miles is 22 months and terrified of Santa...My mom has all these cheesy xmas decorations...and anything with Santa's face on it sends him into a crying and screaming fit...We aren't sure why...I didn't take him to see Santa last year because they were charging 35$ to sit on his lap...ahhhhh holiday spirit!!!

My favorite thing about this time of year is that people actually take time out of their hectic lives and get together..family, friends, coworkers. I also love watching all the Christmas movies on TV such as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street....

We have some "Griswold" type neighbors that go crazy with their exterior illumination, I always enjoy to see what they do every year.

One of our favorite traditions is to drive around looking at all the Christmas lights. Our goal is to find homes with the "Griswold" lighting - we say we're going to look for 'some good Gris". Our friends think we're nuts....

Other than that I love all the Christmas movies/shows - my favs are Christmas vaction, A Christmas Story, Muppets Christmas Carole and How The Grinch Stole Christmas (original cartoon version, didn't like the Jim Carrey remake).

But my favorite part of Christmas is watching the little kids. I love how their faces light up when they see Santa, watching them play in snow, the excitement Christmas morning. My son is only 23 months and doesn't quitet get it yet but I can't wait to see his face on Christmas morn.

We put our Christmas Tree and decorations up the Day after ThanksGiving. The Christmas music is on which Steve (hubby) doesn't like that to much LOL. I will be making Christmas cookies, breads. Christmas Eve after Church we go to my parents house and we open presents from eachother , My whole family is there alot of kids from My oldest nephew whom is 13 years old to my youngest nephew whom is 7 months old my poor niece she is # 6 she is 2 1/2 and the only girl of all these boys it gets loud but its still fun.

Christmas Day My parents and 13 year old nephew ( whom they are Foster parents to also) come to my place for Christmas Dinner of HomeMade Meatballs which takes me a long time to make ,( a lot of work) LOL and Spagetti. This year I got a recipie that my grandmother use to make for my mother every Christmas Sugar & Spice Cookies my mothers favorite she only had them on Christmas So this year I will make them for her , because she misses her mother so much I want her to have that treat. Then later in the evening we will go to Steve's families home to exchange gifts and desserts, then back to my parents for desserts, very stuffing day LOL.. Christmas is my most favorite Holiday. Merry Christmas to all of you.

My family has a ton of Christmas traditions...some of my favorites are:

Making christmas cookies and decorating a whole christmas tree with them (we wrap them up, and tie with ribbon, and hang on the tree), then we eat them over the week of christmas...

Christmas Eve is traditionally one of those "meat free" days for catholics; we always make Soup and home made bread, and eat together after 5 pm mass...then, the "big kids" go back to church for midnight mass...(I might have to skip that one this year, being 8 months pregnant in a church pew is really uncomfortable)...

Christmas morning, we have homemade coffee cakes that look like decorated christmas trees...they are WONDERFUL...and then we open presents...

hmmmm...all of my fav traditions have something to do with food...I DO LOVE this time of year...I love the christmas music, the lights, the cheerful people...and I really love being pregnant now...it makes things go much faster :)

The mid 30's? I hope that's in Celcius lol Yeah our weather here we get a little bit of everything. You name it we have it at least some point during the year, except hurricanes. I don't know if they would survive here but maybe we'll give it a try anyway. My husband is such a scrooge it's like pulling teeth every year just to get him to do anything. LOL

ROFL!!! Yes it's Celsius. I always forget that the States uses Fahrenheit. We don't have hurricanes either, we're too far in land. By the time anything might hit us, it's be a thunderstorm at best.

On the Prairies though our worst weather is in the winter. I'll never forget the Blizzard we had a couple years ago. Shut our entire city down. People were stranded everywhere. It was ridiculous. Then there's the cold snaps. Last two years we've had a week where it's dropped to -50.

Ryan's not so bad with Christmas, he just hates the time it takes to put stuff up. LOL. He'd rather be inside where it's warm.

My favorite thing about this time of year is that people actually take time out of their hectic lives and get together..family, friends, coworkers. I also love watching all the Christmas movies on TV such as National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street....

We have some "Griswold" type neighbors that go crazy with their exterior illumination, I always enjoy to see what they do every year.

LOL Traci, Ryan complains about how much I decorate. But then I do buy a few new things every year. I bought an inflatable Santa with Reindeer standing next to him this year. He just rolled his eyes at me.

I agree about the LED lights too. So not a fan of those. We have a few strings of them now in our garage that just sit there. They still work just don't know what to do with them.

We use the Santa lights. So if one bulb goes the string still stays on. It's easy to tell which ones need replacing. We did take them down one year and put up those LED lights, they looked weird so we switched back. lol. Plus the LED one's ticked me off. You couldn't switch the order the lights go in. So we were stuck with a complete red set, instead of alternating red and white like we usually have up. Saskpower sent out a pamphlet a few weeks ago about the price difference on which lights you use. It was a $7 difference per month. I'm not going to get upset about that, now if it was a huge difference in the amount that our lights use compared to the energy saving ones then I might have switched and just sucked it up. But $7 isn't all that big a deal.

Hail isn't usually an issue here except in the winter and ours have always been ok then. Wind hasn't knocked them down but we used clips to attach them, you can get them at Wal-mart. Our sun isn't overly hot in the summer either. Our summers don't usually get higher than mid 30's. It might be different where you are but ours are still alright. =)